replicating wet darkroom borders in Photoshop

mich8261

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I am starting a small portfolio of my work. Some of the prints I most like came from my recent B&W basics class where I learned to process my own film and print in the wet darkroom. I want to add some of my colour prints to this collection. I would like to keep the format consistent by printing 6" X 9" on 8x10 paper with a black border (replicating the cutout holder look). I will be using Photoshop to do this.

Thanks.
 
Thin (or thick) black borders are easy in Photoshop. If it doesn't cut into any important edge parts of the image, I like to do a Ctrl-A (select image), then Edit->Stroke. You can adjust the stroke thickness and colour.

Otherwise, I use Image->Canvas Size. Be sure that 'Relative' is not clicked, and that the image is centred. Then if you want a, say, 4 pixel black border, add 8 pixels to each dimension, width and height, and set colour to black.

Gene
 
Michel- You can do this in PhotoShop but it may take a little experimenting to get it right. Size your image to the pixel size you want. Then, increase the canvas size a few pixels in both dimensions and choose black for the inner border. Save this, then resize the canvas again to your 8x10 size and choose white.

Your latest addition, the Kodak Brownie Flash six 20 was my first camera, 1951.

Jim N.
 
thank you for the info. I'll play with the Canvas Size function. I guess to get the look I want, I will need to include a clear or white border on the outside and then a black one flush against the image. This will get me the 6x9 image in the centre with the black border on the the 8x10 sheet.

Emil, I think the grunge borders look good online, but they have too much of a specific "fingerprint" to be used for multiple prints in a portfolio, i.e. they will look unaturally identical (which they are).

Cheers,
 
mich8261 said:
... I think the grunge borders look good online, but they have too much of a specific "fingerprint" to be used for multiple prints in a portfolio, i.e. they will look unaturally identical (which they are).

That would then be quite like in the analogue counterpart (filed out negative carrier), where the borders are also almost identical..
 
ffttklackdedeng said:
That would then be quite like in the analogue counterpart (filed out negative carrier), where the borders are also almost identical..
You can get a more random look for example with Clouds and multiplication layers and then saving the whole thing as an action, but it takes a bit of experimenting to produce a consistently good look.
 
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